For someone who has essentially grown in the hills of Northern India and been on a steady diet of Ruskin Bond, a rendezvous with the leopard happens often, be it around the corner of dirt roads or the deeply imaginative spots of the mind. The elusive cat has also been the star of much of […]
Night 8 o’clock, sitting inside reed beds is not a comfortable proposition. It is a hot summer night but the men wait patiently. There is a pond just ahead and there is dearth of oxygen in it. The fish are surfacing quite frequently, gasping. All of a sudden, there is a faint rustle in the
Know Thy Neighbours – The spectacular Fishing Cat Read More »
“You should visit Kanha just to see the forest. It’s different, with taller Sal trees, covering a huge area and a lot denser than Bandhavgarh”, is what the Project Co-ordinator, LWF, Bhavna Menon told me when I was contemplating whether to volunteer for Kanha or not. Of course, for me, going to Kanha did not
On first learning about the project and then speaking to one of the programme coordinators, Bhavna, what attracted me most was the community involvement aspect of conservation that the programme implemented. Coming from a purely science background myself, where the focus has always been on the conservation of the species, habitat or ecosystem, very rarely
Such is the diversity and sheer magnificence of the Pantanal, that even after returning to the daily grind for over three weeks now, the enduring wilderness of the wetlands has not left me. Every time I look at the photographs or simply browse through my field notes, I am transported back to the ‘whirr’ of
In the summer of 2015, I was in Northeast India, doing a field reconnaissance to find a field site for my Masters’ dissertation. Since I aspire to be a carnivore biologist, I thought to myself, what place better than Jeypore-Dehing forest? It has the distinction of having seven wild cat species- the highest recorded Felid
“Hooaaaa!” I join in the chorus and run up and down the dale, wildly flapping my arms. To a visitor, it might be a strange sight, but the exercise is routine for residents of the Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary who balance the fine act of shielding lovingly grown delicate flowers from destructive langurs, and without harming
At first glance, Sewri with its decrepit factories that lie within looming walls and ships that are waging a losing battle against the elements, has the trappings of a ghost town. The smell of oil rents the air, which is already heavy with dust. Makes you balk at the idea of those flamingos flying in
The morning of 8th September began on a fantastic note – a sunrise to remember (as Michael, my naturalist, described it “What a way to start the day”), three white rhinos laying down on the road in beautiful golden light (my first sighting of the white rhino) and a female leopard crossing the road in
The morning of 23rd September 2011 – the penultimate morning of my 3 week safari to Southern Africa. And the Botswana wild gave me a send-off to remember – just as I had begun to miss Mumbai, I was given an invitation to extend my stay in a style unique to the wild world. The
